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Objective: National public opinion polls and surveys use different questions from one another to assess people's abortion attitudes. We included commonly asked abortion attitude items on a single survey to examine people's attitudes toward abortion legality and abortion restriction to create profiles of people which we then compared across state groups. Concurrently assessing attitudes toward both abortion legality and restrictions is important given the changing abortion legislative climate in the United States. Method: We administered an online survey to U.S. adults (n = 919) via Ipsos probability panel and used latent class analysis to identify classes of participants. Then, we used multinominal logistic regression to make state‐level comparisons. Results: We identified three classes: (1) 35.0 percent—abortion should be illegal/more restricted, (2) 35.1 percent—abortion should be legal/laws should reflect the status quo, and (3) 29.9 percent—abortion should be legal/more available. Trigger‐law states comprise the largest proportion of people who think abortion should be illegal/more restricted, whereas states without trigger laws comprise similar proportions of people from all three classes. Conclusion: Concurrently measuring whether people believe abortion should be legal and the extent it should be restricted can provide a more comprehensive understanding of people's attitudes and demonstrates important state‐level nuances in attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence abounds that gut microbiome components are associated with sex disparities in the immune system. However, it remains unclear whether the observed sex disparity in asthma incidence is associated with sex-dependent differences in immune-modulating gut microbiota, and/or its influence on allergic airway inflammatory processes. Using a mouse model of house dust mite (HDM)-induced allergic inflammation and the four core genotypes (FCGs) model, we have previously reported sex differences in lung inflammatory phenotypes. Here, we investigated associations of gut microbiomes with these phenotypes by challenging FCG mice [mouse with female sex chromosome and male gonad (XXM), mouse with female sex chromosome and female gonad (XXF), mouse with male sex chromosome and male gonad (XYM), and mouse with male sex chromosome and female gonad (XYF); n = 7/group] with HDM (25 μg) or PBS intranasally for 5 wk and collecting fecal samples. We extracted fecal DNA and analyzed the 16S microbiome via Targeted Metagenomic Sequencing. We compared α and β diversity across genotypes and assessed the Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes (F/B) ratio. When comparing baseline and after exposure for the FCG, we found that the gut F/B ratio was only increased in the XXM genotype. We also found that α diversity was significantly increased in all FCG mice upon HDM challenge, with the highest increase in the XXF, and the lowest in the XXM genotypes. Similarly, β diversity of the microbial community was also affected by challenge in a gonad- and chromosome-dependent manner. In summary, our results indicated that HDM treatment, gonads, and sex chromosomes significantly influence the gut microbial community composition. We concluded that allergic lung inflammation may be affected by the gut microbiome in a sex-dependent manner involving both hormonal and genetic influences. NEW & NOTEWORTHY: Recently, the gut microbiome and its role in chronic respiratory disease have been the subject of extensive research and the establishment of its involvement in immune functions. Using the FCG mouse model, our findings revealed the influence of gonads and sex chromosomes on the microbial community structure before and after exposure to HDM. Our data provide a potential new avenue to better understand mediators of sex disparities associated with allergic airway inflammation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interventions for animal lifespan extension like caloric restriction (CR) have identified physiologic and biochemical pathways related to hunger and energy‐sensing status as possible contributors, but mechanisms have not been fully elucidated. Prior studies using ghrelin agonists show greater food intake but no effect on lifespan in rodent models. This experiment in male C57BL/6J mice tested the influence of ghrelin agonism for perceived hunger, in the absence of CR, on longevity. Mice aged 4 weeks were allowed to acclimate for 2 weeks prior to being assigned (N = 60/group). Prior to lights off daily (12:12 cycle), animals were fed a ghrelin agonist pill (LY444711; Eli Lilly) or a placebo control (Ctrl) until death. Treatment (GhrAg) animals were pair‐fed daily based on the group mean food intake consumed by Ctrl (ad libitum feeding) the prior week. Results indicate an increased lifespan effect (log‐rank p = 0.0032) for GhrAg versus placebo Ctrl, which weighed significantly more than GhrAg (adjusted for baseline weight). Further studies are needed to determine the full scope of effects of this ghrelin agonist, either directly via increased ghrelin receptor signaling or indirectly via other hypothalamic, systemic, or tissue‐specific mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developmental processes transduce diverse influences during phenotype formation, thereby biasing and structuring amount and type of phenotypic variation available for evolutionary processes to act on. The causes, extent, and consequences of this bias are subject to significant debate. Here we explore the role of developmental bias in contributing to organisms' ability to innovate, to adapt to novel or stressful conditions, and to generate well integrated, resilient phenotypes in the face of perturbations. We focus our inquiry on one taxon, the horned dung beetle genus Onthophagus, and review the role developmental bias might play across several levels of biological organization: (a) gene regulatory networks that pattern specific body regions; (b) plastic developmental mechanisms that coordinate body wide responses to changing environments and; (c) developmental symbioses and niche construction that enable organisms to build teams and to actively modify their own selective environments. We posit that across all these levels developmental bias shapes the way living systems innovate, adapt, and withstand stress, in ways that can alternately limit, bias, or facilitate developmental evolution. We conclude that the structuring contribution of developmental bias in evolution deserves further study to better understand why and how developmental evolution unfolds the way it does. Research Highlights: The significance of developmental bias (DB) is much debated. We focus our inquiry on one taxon, the horned dung beetle genus Onthophagus, and review the role of DB in the evolution of novelty, adaptation, and resilience. We posit that across levels of organization DB shapes the way living systems innovate, adapt, and withstand stress. Such biases may alternately limit or facilitate developmental evolution. We conclude that the structuring contribution of developmental bias in evolution deserves further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1. The significance of host–microbe interactions is increasingly appreciated across biological disciplines, yet to what extent these interactions influence developmental outcomes within and across generations remains poorly understood. 2. This study investigated the putative role of host–microbe interactions in the adaptive diversification of Onthophagus dung beetles, one of the most species‐rich and ecologically successful genera of insects. Onthophagus mothers vertically transmit growth‐ and fitness‐enhancing gut symbionts to their offspring through a faecal secretion known as the pedestal. 3. Pedestals were reciprocally exchanged between two ecologically similar congeneric Onthophagus species to assess the degree to which pedestal microbiota from one species can substitute for those of another. 4. It was found that the presence of a heterospecific pedestal delays development and increases mortality, and that the fitness costs of non‐host‐specific microbiota are maintained transgenerationally. 5. Collectively, these results support the hypothesis that Onthophagus beetles maintain, interact with, and are dependent upon host species‐specific microbial communities to support normal growth and development. The implications of these results are discussed in the context of host microbiota coevolution. Exchange of maternally transmitted microbiota between two dung beetle species resulted in developmental disruption and increased mortality compared with beetles receiving their own microbiota.The magnitude of the negative effects differed between species.The present study uncovered a transgenerational effect of microbiota manipulation on offspring body size in one species – mothers who as larvae received the other species' microbiota had smaller offspring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]